CE: Truro Cathedral Wed, Feb 3rd 2021 [A]

[DracoM]

CE: Truro Cathedral [A]
First broadcast 3 February 2016


Order of Service:


Introit: Prevent us O Lord (Byrd)
Responses: Byrd
Psalm 18 (Parry, Macpherson, Atkins)
First Lesson: Isaiah 61: 1-9
Canticles: The Great Service (Parsons)
Second Lesson: Luke 7: 18-30
Anthem: Simile est regnum caelorum (Guerrero)
Prayer anthem: Ave Maria (Josquin)
Hymn: Now thank we all our God (Nun Danket)

Voluntary: Cathedral Windows (Ave Maria) (Karg-Elert)


Luke Bond (Assistant Director of Music)
Christopher Gray (Director of Music)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000rw9d

[kernelbogey]

What does [A] signify please?

[Simon Biazeck]

What does [A] signify please?

A = Archive, i.e. not a direct broadcast; a repeat

[kernelbogey]

Thanks.

[DracoM]

Archive, i.e. not a direct broadcast; a repeat

Hence the DATE attached - to indicate when first broadcast.

[Simon Biazeck]

Hence the DATE attached - to indicate when first broadcast.

Why the touchy response, or am I misreading you?

[Simon Biazeck]

Hence the DATE attached - to indicate when first broadcast.

And why are you editing my post? That's rather impertinent.

[ardcarp]

Calm, everyone. Let's just enjoy Wednesday's broadcast! I'm looking forward especially to the Parsons canticles.
Karg Elert is a sometimes 'sniffed at' composer. I seem to remember that some of his organ works are designated for organ OR harmonium. I assume Cathedral Windows is not one such. Like most organists, I have played Nun Danket to death, which is a very effective postlude and liked by many...even the way I play it!

[BasilHarwood]

Hence the DATE attached - to indicate when first broadcast.

I keep saying to myself that I should stop reading this forum...

[ardcarp]

...but I hope you won't! We've had a period of relative peace, which I for one have enjoyed very much.

[DracoM]

Apologies for any offence!
Genuinely thought I was helping to highlight for apparently puzzled poster.

[Miles Coverdale]

I'm looking forward especially to the Parsons canticles.

The more usual title for the Parsons is the First Service, under which it was printed in John Barnard's First Book of Selected Church Musick in 1641. It was only given the name 'Great' rather later in an attempt to hitch a ride on the coat-tails of Byrd's Great Service. It's characterised by dense, at times almost canonic imitation in up to seven parts. Its main drawback in my view is that it's harmonically a bit limited, and doesn't stray too far from F major.

[ardcarp]

Wiki on Robert Parsons: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Parsons_(composer)

[DracoM]

His Ave Maria is one to move every heart.

[Vox Humana]

The more usual title for the Parsons is the First Service, under which it was printed in John Barnard's First Book of Selected Church Musick in 1641. It was only given the name 'Great' rather later in an attempt to hitch a ride on the coat-tails of Byrd's Great Service. It's characterised by dense, at times almost canonic imitation in up to seven parts. Its main drawback in my view is that it's harmonically a bit limited, and doesn't stray too far from F major.

It's worth emphasising that the modern Great/Short categorisation of Tudor services is a modern fiction. As has been pointed out (by Richard Turbet) there are only two Great Services that have any claim to having been called such in their day: Byrd's and Tomkins's: Tomkins was a pupil of Byrd, of course.

Parsons did have a liking for dense textures. Deliver me from mine enemies and the superb Retribue servo tuo are other examples. I'm not sure how much modulation we should expect prior to Tallis. Yes, Parsons was a younger composer, but the influences on him strike me as having been primarily Sheppard and Byrd. I don't hear much Tallis in his music. He is a fascinating composer, still woefully under-rated. His Domine quis habitabit is worth anyone's attention. The Latin Magnificat gets slagged off by some, but I think it's superb. The array of canonic writing is pretty accomplished. It's just a shame that it lacks so much of its treble part. End of advert.

Wiki on Robert Parsons: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Parsons_(composer)

The Wackypedia entry on Parsons is a bit dodgy. I keep thinking I should rewrite it, but I don't have the time. For example, we know from the Chapel Royal cheque books that he drowned at Newark, but there is no mention of the River Trent and to assume that he drowned in the river perhaps risks creating an impression that may be not quite on the nail. The thing is, in the sixteenth century the whole area was prone to flooding from the Trent and it seems to have been notorious for claiming lives. In 1638 Richard Braithwaite's 'Drunken Barnaby' visited the town:

Veni New-wark, ubi vivos
Sperans mersos esse rivis,
Irrui cellam subamoenam,
Generosis vinis plenam.
Donec Lictor intrans cellam,
Me conduxit at flagellum.

which, in an edition of 1762, was translated as:

Thence to New-wark, flood-surrounded –
Where I hoping most were drowned;
Hand to hand I straitways shored
To a Cellar richly stored:
Till suspected for a Pick-lock,
Th’Beadle led me to the Whip-stock.

Who knows exactly where Parsons drowned? It may not have been in the river itself.